


By Its Cover

by quartetship



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M, commission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-05
Updated: 2015-06-05
Packaged: 2018-04-02 23:07:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4077271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quartetship/pseuds/quartetship
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[Sometimes, being right really wasn’t all that important. As long as he could be wrong with someone who knew about the things that were beneath his surface - beyond his cover - and liked him anyway.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	By Its Cover

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sthom506](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sthom506/gifts).



> Written on commission for [tumblr user 'pineapplebutt506'](http://pineapplebutt506.tumblr.com/) \- the prompt was Jean & Marco fighting on the internet and ending up as neighbors, and my brain went in all kinds of directions, so I hope the one I settled on satisfies! 
> 
> I used a lot of tidbits of my experiences in fandom and those of my friends to knit this together, so don't be surprised if this seems like an incredibly familiar scenario.
> 
>  
> 
> [(Interested in commissioning me?)](http://quartetship.tumblr.com/post/119971548199/after-lots-of-requests-from-you-guys-and-lots-of)
> 
>  
> 
> Feedback is welcome! Enjoy, friends! 
> 
> \--

‘Lonely’ wasn’t a word Jean liked using, especially to describe himself. But the fact that he kept _himself_ company most of the time made it a hard description to deny outright. He lived alone, he went out alone, he slept alone.

More often than not, Jean Kirschtein _was_ alone.

He’d left most of his friends and family behind when he’d moved to the small Texas town of Maria, happy to have found work but desperately missing an actual social life. What he did have was an internet connection, an he used it to keep in touch with them, and to keep himself from going out of his mind with boredom in the evenings. Netflix and Hulu took up most of his time, Facebook an irritating time waster for when he was truly bored. He spent a lot more time on another site, but that was something that he went out of his way to keep other people from finding out about.

Jean Kirschtein wrote fan fiction.

That was something he never wanted said aloud, mostly because he’d seen people in high school and college catch flack for admitting to writing or reading it. He would join other people in poking fun at ‘nerds’ who wrote transformative works, and then go home to a computer that held folders full of it. It was perfectly normal for a guy his age to like comics and superheros - the entire top shelf of his wide bookcase was devoted to comic books, and he never felt the need to actually cover it - but owning up to writing lengthy works of fiction about them as characters in various alternate universes was out of the question. Jean’s dirty little secret was that he knew what a ship was, what ‘OTP’ meant, and that he had several of each, himself. He had fan fiction writing down to a science, including how to avoid copping to doing it himself in front of other people.

It wasn’t that he was embarrassed by the things he wrote. If it weren’t for the fact that his characters were interpretations of someone elses’s, he’d have considered going public with his work - under an assumed name, of course. Certainly not by the one he used online, ‘jeanjonzz’, as it was yet another comic book hero reference; if he ever published, he promised himself he’d choose a pen name he wouldn’t be embarrassed to go by. All told, he’d written the equivalent of five novels, and even had a fairly decent fan following online for his work. When comic book conventions rolled into nearby towns, he’d take a personal day off from work and go walk amongst people who didn’t know him, and sometimes even be recognized if he jotted his forum screen name down on his convention pass badge. But he kept that world entirely separate from the one he lived and worked in every day, because daily life was peaceful and normal and needed no explanation to other people.

Things on the internet were different.

Online, people didn’t care to be complete assholes. Jean tried to keep his confrontational nature at bay when he interacted with people there; after all, it was just a bunch of people like him, geeking out about comics and movies and things that made next to no difference in the ‘real world’. But a lot of people rubbed him the wrong way, especially as his work began to gain popularity and he became more visible.

And no one rubbed him more raw than _samebodttime._

That was the screen name of an absolute prick, a writer and fan artist who’d taken to interjecting their opinions whenever Jean posted something. Most of the other users just called him ‘Same’, but Jean liked to refer to him as ‘annoying asshole’. His comments were always a ‘friendly reminder’ or a ‘casual mention’ of something, but it always felt like a hard slap to Jean’s pride, and made Jean want to land an equally sharp blow to the other guy’s face. Jean wasn’t even sure Same was a guy, but for the sake of theoretically beating the shit out of him, he liked to think so.

But he never told anyone else how much the guy irritated him, how much even scrolling past the guy’s artwork - as good as it was, which Jean hated admitting - made Jean sick with embitterment . He never mentioned _anything_ about what he did online in his spare time, because he wasn’t ready to explain himself to anyone. He just made the occasional passive-aggressive post about it and tried to sidestep flame wars that he inevitably ended up being the one to start, every time.

At least in person, he could control his temper. At least in person, _samebodttime_ wasn’t a part of his life.

\--

“Um, hi.”

Upon opening his door to an unexpected knock one Saturday afternoon, Jean silently wished that his apartment had been fitted with functioning peep holes, so he wouldn’t have to face the awkward situation of staring someone in the face that he’d never met. He hoped that the other man would realize he had the wrong door and move along once he saw his face, but instead, he offered a disarmingly charming smile and a hand for Jean to shake.

“My name’s Marco, and I’m moving in across the hall. Number 308.” He motioned behind him at a stack of massive boxes lined up next to an open apartment door. “I just wanted to let you and the lady beside me know that I’d probably be making some racket, but I’ll try to be finished before sundown.”

“Oh, uh - alright. Thanks, man.” Jean nodded politely and moved to step back into his own apartment, but when he caught sight of just how many boxes Marco had left to carry - and noticed that he was headed outside to possibly fetch more - he felt a little guilty. Shuffling out into the hallway, he called after him, “Need any help?”

“I mean, if you’ve got the time!” Marco said, but his smile was a grateful one, and Jean was slipping his shoes on a minute later.

\--

Marco didn’t have much, but the things he did have were nice. Jean helped him carry in and assemble a futon couch, a narrow double bed, a tiny kitchen table and some chairs. What was supposed to be a few trips up and down the stairs turned into an all day project, but the comfortable conversation he and Marco almost immediately fell into with one another made it go by so quickly that Jean barely noticed the time slipping away.

One set of boxes had strange markings on them, like some kind of code, and Jean eyed them curiously. When Marco caught sight of him staring at them, he waved dismissively, saying the boxes held some ‘boring notebooks and files’ for a project he was working on, and left it at that. Jean left it as well, and scooted the boxes into an empty corner, ignoring the nagging desire to know what they held in the back of his mind.

His curiosity was quickly forgotten, replaced by laughter that made it easy to ignore the ache in his muscles from hauling boxes and bed frames. By the time Marco’s necessities were mostly assembled, he felt more like a friend than a casual acquaintance, something Jean couldn’t honestly say of any of his other neighbors. It seemed only natural for him to accept Marco’s offer to stay for dinner, Jean lending advice on where the best place to order from was in town. They settled on pizza, and even when it arrived with ham and pineapple on it, Jean gratefully accepted a plate.

“Not a Hawaiian pizza guy?” Marco asked, prodding Jean with his foot when he noticed him picking off the toppings. Jean shrugged, trying not to sound like a complete ass.

“Not really my thing, nah.”

Marco nodded. “So what _is_ your thing?”

“I’m boring,” Jean shrugged. “I’m just a pepperoni and onions kinda guy.”

“That’s not boring.” Marco grinned. “That’s pretty normal. I’m just weird.”

Jean shook his head. “For liking Hawaiian pizza? That’s not that weird, dude.”

“I also hate coffee and chocolate and sometimes eat sandwiches that are nothing but ketchup on bread.” Marco blurted it all out like he was making a deathbed confession, then bit his lips together to keep from laughing. “Weird.”

“Ok, that last one’s pretty weird,” Jean conceded. “But I guess I’ll still talk to you.”

Marco let himself smile, went for another bite of his pizza, and laughed when Jean cringed dramatically at him enjoying a large chunk of pineapple.

“Glad to hear that.”

\--

A friendship began to blossom between Jean and Marco as they settled into a routine, seeing each other fairly often. Marco made Jean smile, actually made him wish for more of a social life, and it was a welcome change from things as they had been in the previous months.

Within the walls of Jean’s own apartment, though, things remained much the same. He still spent too much time online, cared a little too much about the top shelf of his bookcase, and fought losing battles against a person he’d never met online.

‘samebodttime’ continued to make Jean miserable.

It was like fighting a smear campaign; every time the guy would make an amendment to one of Jean’s posts, numerous people would run to his aid, backing him up at every turn and praising him for how polite he was, while Jean stewed over his keyboard wondering how exactly this person had managed to get everyone on his side. When Jean typed up a bitter little blurb about the ‘opinions of the fandom’ being ‘uneducated and largely inaccurate’, Same was the first to respond, asking him to reconsider his ‘blanket statement’, and ending his rebuttal with an obnoxious emoji. Jean could almost feel steam rolling out of his ears as the guy’s fan club materialized to repost his comments and sing his praises.

Yeah, _maybe_ he usually had a point. And maybe he _was_ really nice about it. _Too_ nice, Jean thought; it wasn’t normal. No matter how sweet everyone thought he was, Jean always wondered what his ulterior motive was, and always found himself stoking the flames of his own anger over it.

One weekend afternoon when Jean was laid up with a cold, he wasted some time tweaking his writing and scrolling the online community, knowing full well that Same probably wouldn’t be online, as he seemed absent most weekends. (Which was great, since Jean was usually relegated to spending his time online to keep from admitting that he’d rather be spending it with Marco, who was typically otherwise occupied on the weekends.) But as Jean’s predictably horrible luck would have it, the guy was online literally the entire time Jean was, bragging about his move to a new city. Jean largely ignored his posts, until a conversation thread showed him telling someone else that he’d moved to the _same_ city Jean lived in, and even listed Jean’s own apartment complex as his new home.

Jean could’ve _screamed,_ if he wasn’t too hoarse from coughing - he was living in the same building as his least favorite person on the planet. He tried to think of who it could be, if he might’ve seen them before without realizing it.

He imagined a stereotypical internet troll, envisioning Same as one of the men close to Jean’s age who often congregated in the lounge area near the double doors of the lobby. Guys who smelled like sweat and too much cheap body spray, and probably spent most of their time glued to a screen, when they weren’t blocking the walkways. Not that Jean could pass much judgment on them for that, in particular. But their fake ‘nice guy’ act was grossly obvious in action on the opposite sex, and he assumed they were probably like that online, as well.

One of them had to be Same. There was absolutely no way a human being could be that sickeningly sweet in real life. It had to be an act.

Clearly he wasn’t going to convince anyone else that Same was secretly an asshole. But when the guy left feedback on a new chapter of Jean’s work in progress, claiming that his characterization was ‘a bit off’, and offering to help him with it, Jean saw the world in shades of red, for the rest of the day. He left a scathing, sarcastic response, starting another wave of Same defenders on the attack, but he was too pissed off to care.

Still, it was hard to pretend that it didn’t bother him, sharing his passionate hobby and favorite pastime with an absolute dick.

\--

One thing that wasn’t bothering him was his new neighbor.

Marco was cheerful and bright, and brought a little bit of sunshine into the otherwise drab hallways of their apartment complex. He whistled while he walked the halls leaving or coming into the building, and Jean put just a little extra work into making sure he was up and out the door on time to ‘accidentally’ run into him there. Just sharing space with him for a few minutes was enough to leave Jean smiling for hours; not even knowing the asshole from his fan forum lived in his building could dampen that.

Every time he or Marco had their doors open, it seemed that one of them was inviting the other inside for something. Marco would ask Jean to help him finish off a pizza that just happened to have Jean’s favorite toppings on it, or Jean would ask for Marco’s help with something that he’d just done himself the day before with no problem. Any excuse they could come up with to linger with each other was good enough to get them in the door and keep them there for hours. After a few weeks, they stopped making excuses altogether.

“So I’ll see you after I get off tonight, alright?”

Jean still clarified with Marco every time they parted ways in the morning before heading off to work, but the answer was always the same.

“Same bat time, same bat channel.” It was a reference Jean had accidentally pulled on Marco once before, and rather than laughing himself silly and teasing Jean for it, he’d adopted it on the spot as if he’d been using it his entire life, and Jean’s heart still swelled a little every time Marco used it. It was nice to hear it in Marco's gorgeous voice, rather than the sour tone his mind offered up when he thought about his internet enemy by a similar handle. But Marco made him forget all about that. He gave Jean that smile full of sunshine before bumping his arm against Jean’s and heading out for the day. Jean stared after him, only realizing he was smiling like an idiot at an empty doorway a few minutes later. He wondered if Marco smiled like that for everybody, or if maybe he was picking up some of the same vibes from his friend that he himself was surely spilling all over the place every time they were together.

Jean really liked Marco.

Not the same way he liked most people. Jean wasn’t extremely social, but that was mostly because he was still in a relatively new city, without many old friends and few opportunities outside of work to make any decent new ones. At least that’s what he told himself. But he did have a few casual acquaintances, and they were all fine to hang out with in small doses. But Marco was different.

Marco was that guy that made Jean smile on reflex, just thinking about him. He was that person that could make Jean say yes to things he’d normally have no interest in, but instead spent his time trying to accommodate to what Jean was into. He was the one who Jean didn’t get tired of after a few hours, and always wanted to see more of. And it didn’t hurt that he was unfairly gorgeous.

Marco was that person that made Jean actually consider dating. Shy by nature of all things romantic, Jean hadn’t had a significant other since high school, and he was usually perfectly happy that way. He never really wanted to go out with anyone, no matter how much grief he had to take from his mother for it. But Marco was shifting the ground beneath Jean’s feet. As they got to know each other, Jean found himself more and more attracted to him, and daydreaming about such trivial little snapshots as hand-holding on public transit and sitting in a pile on his couch or Marco’s bed, watching bad movies and eating takeout. But the night that he woke from a horrible dream at three in the morning and found himself wishing that Marco was beside him to offer comfort - to wrap his arms around Jean and fall asleep again beside him - he knew he was in deeper than he’d been willing to admit.

He fell back to sleep to the buzzing of his thoughts as he tried to remember how to even go about asking someone out.

\--

Jean didn’t really have time to think about his plan of approach. The question seemed to just materialize between them over yet another meal of pizza that Marco just couldn’t finish without his help.

“What are we?”

Marco looked back at Jean over the rim of his drinking glass, raising an eyebrow. Jean chewed on his lip for a moment before pressing forward.

“I mean... we hang out a lot, you know? And it just seems to me like there’s... I don’t even know if you’re into guys, but...”

He trailed off as that fact washed over him, full force. He’d never even bothered to find out if Marco was attracted to men, or interested in dating people at all, and yet there he was, wading out into a tide that would sweep him away even if he turned back. With a sharp shrug of one shoulder, he did his best to sound like he wasn’t panicking, and to keep his eyes on Marco’s.

“I just wondered if you might wanna do something sometime that’s a little more exciting than splitting a pizza.”

Marco eyed him blankly for a moment, and Jean sucked in a shaky breath, waiting. But then Marco’s sunny smile began to rise at the corners of his mouth, and he cocked his head to one side, narrowing his eyes flirtatiously.

“Like what?”

“Like maybe I could take you somewhere, sometime. Out.”

“Out sounds nice,” Marco grinned, scooting a little closer. They always flopped down onto Marco’s futon couch without much care to how close they were sitting, but Jean was suddenly acutely aware of their proximity as Marco leaned in a little more. “I like out.”

“Maybe we could make ‘out’ a regular thing?” Jean offered, hoping he wasn’t pushing his luck. But Marco nodded and smiled even wider.

“I think I’d like that, too.”

“I think I like you,” Jean added, before he could stop himself. Luckily Marco seemed to find it more endearing than embarrassing, and leaned in to close the space between them to press a soft, quick kiss to Jean’s lips before pulling back just enough to meet his eyes again.

“Glad we’re on the same page, then.”

\--

The next few days weren’t really all that different for Jean.

He still had work. He still had his own projects to work on. He still walked Marco to the the door of their apartment complex every day, just to hear whatever goofy reassurance he came up with that day that he would see him again that evening. But the kiss he sealed his promise with was different, and Jean spent the rest of his days that week wishing for the weekend, so he could make good on his offer for a date.

Even swimming on the high, gentle tide of his budding new relationship, things weren’t entirely perfect that week. There were still a lot of things he hadn’t mentioned to Marco, and he worried that those things might be off-putting enough to wreck things between them later. Marco didn’t seem the type of person to abandon a friendship over something trivial, but who would really want to be caught sleeping with someone who wrote novel length stories about Batman getting it on with Wonder Woman and Superman? Probably not Marco, or anyone else, for that matter. That was if Marco was even into the idea of sleeping with someone at all.

They still had a lot to talk about.

Even as he was debating whether or not to let Marco in on his geekier secrets, his flame war with _samebodttime_ continued.

It wasn’t really a flame war in the traditional sense. There weren’t many flames; Same was as saccharine as ever. There wasn’t much of a war, either. The whole thing mostly boiled down to Jean, yelling about things that he could have easily dropped, but nothing sparked his temper more than seeing posts with that screen name attached.

It bothered Jean to no end, knowing that Same lived so close to him. It could’ve been anyone - the internet was no indicator of what a person was really like. Jean eyed every person he passed with suspicion, wondering if it could be them, if they lived above him or below him or even right down the hall. He went from generally not caring about the existence of his neighbors to harboring an absolute disdain for at least one of them. Having no target for that anger just made it worse.

But the next day was Saturday - the day of his first real date with Marco - and he had better ways to be spending his time than in front of a screen, arguing with an idiot he’d hopefully never have to meet.

\--

Jean spent nearly as much time getting himself ready for his date as he actually spent _on_ it. He worried about what to talk about, how to dress, what kind of cologne he should wear; it had been far too long since he’d been on a proper date. But in the end, none of it mattered. Marco literally met him at the lobby door beaming, and everything after that was a blissful, blinding blur of complete success.

They had dinner together, and when Jean knocked his knuckles nervously against Marco’s, Marco threaded their fingers together right there on top of the table. When their bubbly waitress asked about splitting the check, Marco was quick to tell her that he’d like it on one tab, the tone of his voice undeniably proud. He would hear no argument from Jean about paying for dinner, instead assuring Jean that he could be the one to spring for food _next time._ Those two little words left Jean smiling the rest of the evening, all the way back to their apartment building.

Somewhere between stepping into the elevator with _‘thanks for a great time’_ on his lips and stumbling backward into the hallway of their floor with those lips parted against Marco’s, Jean found a moment to murmur, “Your place or mine?”

With a low hum, Marco pulled back just enough to catch a breath and whisper, _“Mine.”_

They all but fell through his apartment door together a moment later.

Being inside Marco’s apartment seemed different, that night. Jean had lost track of how many times he’d been there before, how often he’d seen the surroundings, so frequently that they’d become familiar. But there was something different between them, then, and it set the air around them crackling with an energy that was new. Marco seemed to feel it, too; he paused between every touch, every kiss to ask for permission, even as he pulled Jean down on top of him on his bed, cautious and careful but lost in the same lust that was beginning to rob Jean of his ability to speak, to think, to even breathe.

Dragging his lips over the heated skin of Jean’s shoulder a moment later though, Marco laughed, and Jean tensed, pushing up onto his arms to look down at him.

“What?”

Marco grinned, shrugged. “Nothing. S’just... funny.”

“What’s that?” Jean asked, breathless. Marco reached up to gently pinch at his chin, prompting them both to crack a smile.

“I didn’t think I’d like you, at first. The day I met you, you seemed... grumpy. And yet here I am, crazy about you.”

Jean drew his eyes down into a dramatic scowl, crossing his arms over his chest, trying to pretend he wasn’t soaring inside at Marco’s last few words. “Grumpy? What are you, six? And besides, I’m not grumpy.”

“Clearly,” Marco laughed, and Jean launched himself back down onto him, tickling his sides until Marco yelped a truce and rolled them both over to face one another. They lay that way, stealing tiny, winded kisses until they caught their breath again, and Jean sighed.

“In all seriousness, though - you’re right. I guess you can’t really understand people until you take the time to get to know them.” Jean scratched nervously at the back of his neck, hoping he was making sense. “And for me, figuring that out was big. I didn’t even realize I liked you like this -” Jean motioned between them, “- until we’d been hanging out for a while. I guess I just don’t like to jump into anything that involves how I feel about people.”

“That makes a lot of sense,” Marco smiled, and Jean felt a little of the pressure in his chest dissipate. “I agree. I mean, I want you to want to be with me. But I want that to be because you know me, and because you like what you know of me.”

“I do,” Jean assured him. “Trust me.” He bumped his nose against Marco’s, hoping as they kissed again that it was apparent just how much he wanted to be there, how much he wanted to be with Marco. Worried that it might not be, he gathered his courage and made every attempt at suavity as he whispered, “So do you wanna do the ‘boyfriend’ thing? Like... officially?”

Marco’s eyes sparkled in the low light of the room, and Jean had to remind himself to breathe. Marco nodded, laughed quietly as he pressed their foreheads together. “I’d like that, yeah.”

Jean grinned, wide and slightly crooked as he snaked arms around Marco’s neck and whispered, “Good, ‘cause I like you.” They spent the night there, drunk on a moment that seemed like it would last forever.

\--

The next morning, Marco seemed determined to nail down a ‘best boyfriend ever’ title as quickly as possible, ordering delivery from one of Jean’s favorite places for something that resembled brunch. A pile of tangled limbs, they ate on Marco’s tiny couch, dropping forkfuls of their food on each other by accident and making a game of nibbling it off.

With a full stomach and a fingers laced with Marco’s, Jean felt completely relaxed. He’d never had a one night stand in his life, or even a date that had ended with him curled up in bed with someone, but he’d woken up to brunch and a boyfriend, so he considered the night before to be a good thing. He was still reveling in his success when he glanced over to Marco’s laptop - open and sitting on a nearby end table - and noticed something that made him smile a little wider.

“You like Batman?”

Marco’s computer wallpaper was an image of the superhero’s logo; his face brightened and he nodded eagerly.

“Oh, god - you have no idea! Not just Batman, either; I’m the biggest DC dork. I even got to go to a con last year.”

“Where?” Jean asked, forgetting entirely that he had planned to keep the side of him that was far too invested in comic book characters to himself for a while longer.

“The one here in Maria, actually!” Marco replied excitedly. “Did you know about it?”

“I _went,”_ Jean grinned. “I probably saw you there, honestly. Just didn’t know you.” He laughed, and Marco did too. “I love DC. I... I even have like... fan art saved of some stuff.”

Marco’s eyes lifted further, his smile widened. “Seriously? I _do_ fan art sometimes! That’s what I have stashed in those big ugly boxes, all my sketch books. I even write fan fiction.” He rubbed a hand over his mouth, as if trying to erase the impossibly bright grin there. “Sorry, that’s nerdy as hell, I know.”

“Not really,” Jean shrugged, trying to contain his enthusiasm. “I, uh - I do, too.”

‘Really?! Do you post it anywhere?”

The answer was out of Jean’s mouth before he could stop himself, admitting that he used several of the more popular forums. At the mention of one, Marco gasped excitedly.

“Who are you there?” Marco asked, still grinning like mad. “I have an account there, too - maybe I’ve talked to you there!”

“Uh, ‘jeanjonzz’, like Martian Manhunter, y’know?” Jean said, maybe a little bit embarrassed by his choice of handle, but Marco’s excited smile urged him on. “Who are you?”

“I’m ‘samebodttime’ - it's like a play on my last name - but a lot of people just call me ‘Same’,” Marco blurted out, and as quickly as he said it, Jean’s excited smile cracked and fell away, and he found himself staring straight ahead, mind knocked fully off its track.

“Uh, Jean? Are you alright?” Marco sat up straighter beside him, wiggling backward just enough to look at him. “Jean?”

When Jean still didn’t respond, something seemed to snap in Marco, and he began to babble nervously.

“Look, I’m not sure what to say, and I don’t know if I said something wrong, or what I did, but I would leave you alone if you wanted, except this is my apartment, and I’m not even sure where I’d g--”

Jean cut him off with a sharp wave of his hand, letting it come to rest on Marco’s knee as he willed himself to break his dazed, aimless stare and look back at him.

“Sorry, I... I just didn’t know what to say.” Jean began. He licked his lips and drew a slow breath, stalling to give himself an extra moment to collect his thoughts. “I can’t believe you’re - that’s you, and I had no idea. I’ve spent the last couple of months fucking _hating_ that guy, and here I am, _dating_ him.”

Marco’s mouth dropped open, eyes drawn into a hard scowl, even as his lip quivered slightly. _“Hated_ me? Why?! What have I ever done to--”

“You were just a know-it-all dick. With that phony nice-guy act - you were fucking _annoying.”_ Jean grumbled, palming at his face as he struggled to reconcile his perception of _samebodttime_ with his genuinely sweet, kindhearted boyfriend. They just didn’t fit. “Or at least I thought you were.”

“In my defense, you have some pretty sharp opinions,” Marco countered. “And you’re not shy about sharing them. Sometimes the way you do it seems really rude, and you just come off as...”

“An asshole?” Jean offered. Marco bit his lips together into a tight line, nodding his reluctant agreement.

“But I’m not!” Jean argued, even though saying it aloud, it felt like a lie. “I just get riled up - it’s too damned easy to get pissed at people over that kind of stuff. I blow off steam there, but I’m not a jerk all the time. You _know_ that.”

“You don’t have to convince me of that, Jean. Everyone has faults, and I guess you've already seen mine, too. But I don’t think you’re anyone other than the person that’s sitting in front of me. You’re _Jean._ Not _jeanjonzz.”_

“And you’re not _samebodttime,”_ Jean said, mostly to convince himself. The longer he thought about it, the more he realized that Marco was probably right - he was the one pissing everyone off - but admitting to it was harder than accepting the fact that Same had never actually done anything _too_ terrible to him. That his frequent rants online about not judging a book by its cover had blown up in his face, rather impressively. That Same was actually Marco - that Jean _liked_ the guy.

“So are we... Do you still wanna do the boyfriend thing?” Marco sounded hesitant but hopeful as he pulled his legs in toward himself, watching Jean. “This doesn’t have to change anything.”

Jean puffed out his cheeks, swishing the held air from one side of his mouth to the other as he mulled it over. When he tried to form a logical list of reasons why not to, everything he came up with evaporated through his fingers like dissipating smoke. ‘Same’ had never really done anything to wrong him and _Marco_ certainly hadn’t. Marco was patient and kind, and even into the same things that Jean liked. And he was also a really good kisser, among other things. Finally - after giving Marco a reason to anxiously shift away from him - Jean exhaled and nodded, jamming his toes under Marco’s crossed legs and wiggling them.

“I still wanna, if you do,” he said quietly. “But I honestly have no idea why you’d wanna sleep with such an asshole.”

Marco laughed, relief and genuine amusement in it. “My reasons are my own,” he chuckled, reaching beneath him to squeeze Jean’s bare feet. “But it starts with the fact that I know the real you. And no amount of you being asinine on the internet is going to change that.”

Jean wrinkled his nose at the word ‘asinine’, crossing his arms again. “I think I liked ‘grumpy’ better.”

“I think I like _you,”_ Marco grinned, and pressed a kiss to his lips to quiet any retort he might have had.

\--

As it turned out, Marco did still want to sleep with him. Pretty frequently, in fact.

Learning had never been high on Jean’s priority list in life, but dating Marco made learning an everyday occurrence. Learning not to jump to conclusions, learning that people were always better understood, the better you got to know them - learning how to do that thing Marco did with his tongue when they kissed, so he could give him a taste of his own frustratingly sexy medicine. When Marco was the teacher, Jean was happy to take notes.

Once the initial shock to their own systems wore off, they broke the news to their online followers and watched the forum nearly implode on itself with chatter. The responses were a mixture of complete shock, demands for an artistic collaboration between the two of them, and excited virtual squealing that quickly resulted in a 'ship name'. Marco motioned toward the screen and wriggled in Jean’s lap as they watched more notifications roll in.

“You think they ship us?” He grinned. Jean nipped at his ear, coiling his arms tighter around Marco’s waist with a satisfied hum.

_“I_ ship us. And as long as you do too, that’s all I care about.”

Marco snorted. “Ah, yes, Mr. _‘opinions of the fandom are uneducated and largely inaccurate’_. How could I forget?”

“Listen,” Jean started, but Marco was already reaching for a pillow to smack him with, and then Jean forgot to argue for another solid hour, too distracted by kisses to complain about much of anything.

Sometimes, being right really wasn’t all that important. As long as he could be wrong with someone who knew about the things that were beneath his surface - _beyond his cover_ \- and liked him anyway.


End file.
